"How many light bulbs does it take to change the teacher?"
The repetitive ‘light bulb‘ joke works because it uses a simple task, changing a light bulb, and applying a stereotypical belief about that group of people. Attitudinal change is a little more difficult and over the years there has been a good deal of research done on the factors affecting teachers’ adoption of technology. The research identified six implicit factors that affect the adoption process:
Trust
Identity
Process Goals
Situational Constraints
Contextual Idiosyncrasies
Self-Efficacy
Research (and experience) show that teachers are most likely to value intrinsic rewards such as self-respect, responsibility, and a sense of accomplishment which together they see as ‘professionalism’. Helping young people to learn is the central goal of those who enter the teaching profession and therefore, educators that have adopted technology into their methodology, are often surprised at teachers do not see the benefits it brings to students’ learning. Yet adoption is intrinsically tied up with the teacher’s pedagogical belief system. They will only look and evaluate new concepts and ideas if it supports their view of how students learn and succeed in their classroom. So when mediating and facilitating change with teachers, it’s not about how many ‘light bulbs’ you present, but making sure the most appropriate ones are replaced so that every individual can switch them on in their own time and way.
Innovation
Brainstorming or creative output is a much required skill in today's learning environment and in the workplace. All too often the lack of creative talent can mean failure in a normally successful endeavor. How does creativity fit into the technology fluency continuum?
A few years ago I was teaching a grade 9 multimedia class, and after brief instructions on the first day I placed in front of each student a blank piece of paper. I explained the need for ideas, the need for creative expression and the need to challenge your thought process prior to using the appropriate tool (computer) to make your visions, ideas or sketches come to reality. It was quite an experience, where in one case the student had a completely empty paper after 40 minutes. "I could not think of anything", he uttered as I came to pick up the paper. How would you handle this situation? How did you handle the lego exercise.... the challenge is not about the technology...still about learning.
Many students are quite adept at playing games but demonstrate little ingenuity when it comes time to productive output. They often treat assigned work as just more work rather than an opportunity to broaden skills. Students often complete the task but keep creative ideas in check. PowerPoint loses its appeal when each teacher asks the student to present... and this occurs most often.
What we are looking for are brainstorming or idea tools that actually flow with your thought process and allow you to capture your imagination in more than 2 dimensions. Inspiration and Mind manager are two examples of tools that allow you create lines of thinking around a topic.
Assignment:
The questions is: How has learning improved through the use of technology? Make specific reference to as many Web 2.0 tools or eLearning tools as possible. Try to focus on examples you have used as well as what the research supports. How can we measure learning in a meaningful way?
In response to this question, draft an outline then prepare the main ideas using either Inspiration or Mind manager. Each of your topics should have sub layers with more depth. You may work in groups. In order to reduce future work the completion of this task may serve as an outline for your paper on this topic. Each student of the group should have a similar template but explanations of the ideas will differ.
You may hand in this assignment as a group or team.
Lesson 7
"How many light bulbs does it take to change the teacher?"
The repetitive ‘light bulb‘ joke works because it uses a simple task, changing a light bulb, and applying a stereotypical belief about that group of people. Attitudinal change is a little more difficult and over the years there has been a good deal of research done on the factors affecting teachers’ adoption of technology. The research identified six implicit factors that affect the adoption process:
Research (and experience) show that teachers are most likely to value intrinsic rewards such as self-respect, responsibility, and a sense of accomplishment which together they see as ‘professionalism’. Helping young people to learn is the central goal of those who enter the teaching profession and therefore, educators that have adopted technology into their methodology, are often surprised at teachers do not see the benefits it brings to students’ learning. Yet adoption is intrinsically tied up with the teacher’s pedagogical belief system. They will only look and evaluate new concepts and ideas if it supports their view of how students learn and succeed in their classroom. So when mediating and facilitating change with teachers, it’s not about how many ‘light bulbs’ you present, but making sure the most appropriate ones are replaced so that every individual can switch them on in their own time and way.
Innovation
Brainstorming or creative output is a much required skill in today's learning environment and in the workplace. All too often the lack of creative talent can mean failure in a normally successful endeavor. How does creativity fit into the technology fluency continuum?
A few years ago I was teaching a grade 9 multimedia class, and after brief instructions on the first day I placed in front of each student a blank piece of paper. I explained the need for ideas, the need for creative expression and the need to challenge your thought process prior to using the appropriate tool (computer) to make your visions, ideas or sketches come to reality. It was quite an experience, where in one case the student had a completely empty paper after 40 minutes. "I could not think of anything", he uttered as I came to pick up the paper. How would you handle this situation? How did you handle the lego exercise.... the challenge is not about the technology...still about learning.
Many students are quite adept at playing games but demonstrate little ingenuity when it comes time to productive output. They often treat assigned work as just more work rather than an opportunity to broaden skills. Students often complete the task but keep creative ideas in check. PowerPoint loses its appeal when each teacher asks the student to present... and this occurs most often.
What we are looking for are brainstorming or idea tools that actually flow with your thought process and allow you to capture your imagination in more than 2 dimensions. Inspiration and Mind manager are two examples of tools that allow you create lines of thinking around a topic.
The questions is: How has learning improved through the use of technology? Make specific reference to as many Web 2.0 tools or eLearning tools as possible. Try to focus on examples you have used as well as what the research supports. How can we measure learning in a meaningful way?
In response to this question, draft an outline then prepare the main ideas using either Inspiration or Mind manager. Each of your topics should have sub layers with more depth. You may work in groups. In order to reduce future work the completion of this task may serve as an outline for your paper on this topic. Each student of the group should have a similar template but explanations of the ideas will differ.
You may hand in this assignment as a group or team.